Relentless: 'PS3 is starting to reveal its power'

Brighton-based UK studio Relentless, co-creator of the Buzz series of quiz games, has been discussing yesterday's announced move towards PlayStation 3 development in the latest issue of Develop.

Echoing the culture shock many studios have encountered in moving from previous gen to new hardware, development director and co-founder Andrew Eades described the venture onto PS3 for an unannounced title as "a strange journey". :

"We were really comfortable making PS2 games, but when it comes to PS3 we found it harder than we thought it would be," said Eades. "We didn't think it would be a walk in the park, but we found it harder than we should have. We had some missteps in the art style, and that slowed us down - we were a bit worried at first but now it looks like a true next-gen game. Now we've got in place everything we need - with the right technical people and art people – and PS3 is starting to reveal its power to us."

Added Eades: "When we're walking around the studio we're starting to see things on people's screens that really make you stop in your tracks to look at. It has taken us longer than we would have liked, but we're really happy with what we're seeing for PS3."

Creative director and co-founder David Amor also had plenty of praise for the support Sony is offering with it's new PlayStation Edge technology suite, a collection of tools put together by SCE studios that worked on the first wave of games for the PS3.

"PS3 is quite a complicated machine to write for," said Amor. "But PlayStation Edge is a great help. I remember when I spoke to the Media Molecule guys, one of them said to me 'the Insomniac guys, they've cracked the SPUs, they got it.' So now those tools are available for third-party studios, it's good news for all of us."

More comments from Amor and Eades, discussing Relentless' productivity-encouraging working practices and new education-focused game Buzz for Schools, can be found in the latest issue of Develop which can be downloaded here.